Trump approves weapons supplies to Kurds battling ISIS

U.S. President Donald Trump has approved the supplying of weapons to Kurdish forces battling the Islamic State (ISIS) group in Syria, AFP reported Tuesday.

The funding "to provide support to the YPG has been approved," an American official said on condition of anonymity.

"The approval is effective immediately but the timeline for weapons delivery is to be refined," the official added.

The move is sure to infuriate ally Turkey, which considers the YPG a terror organization linked to separatist rebels in southeast Turkey. The U.S., on the other hand, sees the YPG as a key ally in its fight against ISIS.

The official did not specify what kind of weapons will be provided to the YPG, but they will be used in the upcoming fight to recapture the ISIS bastion of Raqa.

The jihadists' capital of their supposed "caliphate" is being surrounded by a Kurdish and Syrian Arab alliance and officials are expecting a brutal fight to retake the city.

The decision to arm the Kurds was announced just hours after Pentagon chief Jim Mattis met with a Turkish official in Denmark at an anti-ISIS coalition summit.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly expressed his anger over U.S. support for the YPG, accusing the West of backing "terror groups".